In August it was a Tennessee mom. Now, Detroit police are pursing charges against a father whose uneventful weekend outing with his young sons was considered so deviant, it was apparently deemed worthy of state intervention on behalf of the children.

On September 2nd, Sean Harrington biked to the Detroit RiverWalk with his twin sons in a bike trailer. On the way home, he took the sidewalk north on Park Avenue, which is a one way side street heading south.

When pedestrians and construction scaffolding blocked the sidewalk, he rode on the road for about four car lengths.

That was apparently too much for Detroit Police who issued Harrington a $110 ticket and now may face charges of child endangerment.

What’s even more ridiculous is Park Avenue is a very low volume road. A 2005 study found an average of 280 cars per day on this section of road, which is lower than most residential neighborhood streets. North bound Clifford just west of Park carries ten times more traffic, and Woodward even more still.

Impeding vehicle traffic? Seriously?

Rather than hold government officials accountable for approving plans that make it dangerous to move around without a car, we charge those who dare to bike and walk. Therein lies the problem in this country.

Elsewhere on the Network today: CarFree With Kids interviews a carfree West Virginia family as part of its ongoing first-person series featuring households with young children that get around by bike and transit. Pedestrian Observations explores the connection between city size and congestion levels. And Market Urbanism discusses how low-income housing interests have become an unlikely obstacle to removing parking minimums on California.

Editor’s Note: Yesterday we published a story that included information, sourced from a blog, that was outdated and therefore incorrect. The post was pulled when we learned of the update. We apologize for any confusion or misinformation.

Child endangerment is a bit of a stretch, but I’m going to agree with the ticket here – he was riding his bike the wrong way on a one-way street. If a motorist in a car did that, they would definitely deserve a ticket. I’m all for having cyclists and motorists be able to share roadways. I think in order for that to happen, us cyclists need to respect the same laws and those laws should be equally enforced.

Anonymous

It’s more than “a bit of a stretch”. If you drive the wrong way, you get a ticket and that’s it. If you are accused of child endangerment, you could lose your child.

Nat Hayes

From the position of the cycling laws one could argue that what he did was similar to a car crossing into the oncoming traffic lane to pass an obstacle in their travel lane, perhaps?

Judge will decide …

http://www.nickawilliams.com/ Nick

I think you guys are perhaps missing the point. The problem doesn’t lie with the police enforcing a clear and understandable law. That’s just what they’re paid to do. The problem lies with a city that, through policy, makes life without a car hazardous to the point that simply moving through town becomes a case of “child endangerment.”

It doesn’t excuse a father for breaking the rules. But it does point out the absurdity of the rules (and priorities behind them) to begin with.

You Can’t Tip a Buick

The thing that complicates this is that that area of detroit is eerily empty of cars. One time, when I lived out there, we turned the wrong way onto Park and drove about a block before we realized we were going the wrong way, because there were absolutely no cars whatsoever.

Anonymous

So if the cops want to prove that they aren’t alarmingly and illogically biased against bicycists, then every motorist who gets a traffic ticket for speeding, running a red light, etc with children in the car should is also charged with child endangerment, right? After all, car accidents are the number one killer of children, so they’re on top of that, right?

http://ladyfleur.wordpress.com/ ladyfleur

The wrong-way riding ticket is reasonable. But child endangerment? That’s ludicrous. By those standards, any driver who makes an unsafe lane change on the freeway or accelerates to run a “yellow” light or talks on a cell phone while driving could be cited for child endangerment.

Anonymous

Yes, it points out the absurdity of the laws, but yes the problem also lies with the police. They exercise judgement all the time, e.g. when giving a motorist a warning instead of a ticket even though they broke the law, and it’s ridiculous for the cops to act so rigidly and unthoughtfully about a stupid law. Again, what it actually shows is their bias against bicyclists, as they could have easily given a warning.

http://www.clubantietam.com Clubantietam

@qrt145:disqus Ah, I do see your point there – with basically no traffic on the road it’s hard to see the merit in the child endangerment charge.

Anonymous

Four car lengths on a one way street, riding against traffic? If that was the distance and those were the circumstances then perhaps if they just walked their bikes the short distance around the hazard this wouldn’t have been a problem.

Anonymous

Glad to see that all the other crimes in Detroit have been prevented or solved!

“Anyone who travels back and forth across the Atlantic has to be
impressed with the difference between European cities and ours, which
make it appear as though World War Two actually took place in Detroit
and Washington rather than Berlin and Rotterdam.”

-James Howard Kunstler, “Home From Nowhere”

Anonymous

@openid-102568:disqus and @jd_x:disqus make a good point. you don’t hear about parents with kids in a car who get caught speeding or even driving the wrong way on a one way street charged (or even considered to be charged) with child endangerment. it seems the policy are either overstating the danger in the cycling case or understating the danger in driving cases.

Zulu

Yes ofcourse, hind sight is always 20/20. The real question is, what would you have done in the same situation. Odds are, you would’ve ridden on the street just the same as he did. It can also be speculated that the police would have ticketed him for obstructing traffic or even jay walking had he walked the bike.

Anonymous

Yep, either way, the police are inconsistent and biased towards cyclists. And that’s the point of lot of cyclists are trying to make: it’s hard enough trying to get by on bicycle when poor urban design puts the flow of automobile traffic over your safety, but it’s another thing when the cops are so biased against you that they come up with ludicrous charges about cyclists endangering their or others health while cars are killing 10′s of thousands and maiming millions every year. It’s time for a huge wake-up call for the police forces of our cities.

Anonymous

@ebb4035fe30f2d00466ce7ea0b9e7e07:disqus What would I have done? When I am riding with CHILDREN I observe common sense traffic laws and would not in any fashion demonstrate that driving against traffic is OK. I would have instructed them that walking their bikes is the best solution to such a hazard. If the side walk is closed to pedestrians then the same applies to cyclists WALK AROUND THE HAZARD.
There’s no 20/20 hindsight involved when teaching young people about bicycle safety.

There are ample reasons to conclude that cities across the country are lacking in bicycle friendliness, to me this example isn’t a particularly good one.

Robert

He was cycling down a one-way street, the wrong way. So this isn’t as “cut and dry,” anti-bicycling as you might first guess.

Also, does anyone notice that the video clip is sponsored by……a car company…just like every other piece of media in the United States.

Robert

He was cycling down a one-way street, the wrong way. So this isn’t as “cut and dry,” anti-bicycling as you might first guess.

Also, does anyone notice that the video clip is sponsored by……a car company…just like every other piece of media in the United States.

Velocentric

Gee, do you suppose this might be retribution because Sean and his lawyer contacted federal authorities about Detroit Police Dept’s continuing violation of a federal consent decree?

@effrom:disqus According to the post, the street sees 12 vehicles an hour, or one vehicle every 5 minutes. Common sense says that you can do pushups in the middle of the street with no ill effect.

Do you not remember the days of playing kickball or hockey in the middle of the street?

http://twitter.com/jmpalacios JM Palacios

You agree you should get a ticket when you’re riding legally on the sidewalk and have to go around an obstacle? I guess you side with the cop on this video then? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ Stay in the bike lane or sidewalk and run into things?

Anonymous

@google-88ee16d91abb4d754f46366a4721df4e:disqus James if you wish to escort children on bicycles the wrong way down a one way street you’re welcome to do that. Traffic laws are there for a reason and if cyclists want to share the road with motor vehicles (as I do) then they must obey traffic laws.

And for the record, I do remember playing kickball in the street and loving it –though I’ve never done it on a bike. Is that a new thing?

Anonymous

Whoa! Same guy? Sounds like the cops have a vendetta. They were probably following him around looking for reason to eff with him.

Tallycyclist

Beyond this ‘distance’ or one-way-street factor is a more fundamental issue at hand, and that is ignoring the bull in the china shop. ALL of these traffic rules and laws were essentially put there because of the 2+ ton vehicles going at speeds that a pedestrian or cyclist would not be able to achieve under any or most circumstances. Why do we even have terms like jay-walking or what have you? It’s because cars have made our cities way more dangerous than they otherwise would be. But instead of taming this bull, we continue to prioritize and make excuses for them, making all other modes of transport less desirable and safe and restricting these other modes instead. It’s cars that kill over 30,000 Americans every year, not bikes, not pedestrians trying to also get from A to B.

Sure, everyone has some responsibilities to uphold if we are to maintain order on our streets. I do not condone foolish jay-walking or cycling that could potential endanger others. But to feel that cyclist need to behave absolutely like vehicles, or that pedestrians should only cross at crosswalks when the light is green…come on, what are we ,machines like the cars or robots? You can argue that bicycles are also ‘machines’ but compared to it car, that’s apples and oranges. Considering how much faster and heavier cars are, drivers should bear the most responsibilities.

There’s nothing inherently different between pedestrians, cyclists or drivers. We’re all PEOPLE. The difference comes when we are operating the different ‘vehicles.’ Oddly to me, that’s when people are automatically sorted into a caste system, based on size and speed (which equals power on the road). I can understand why there’s so much anger and frustration being directed towards cyclist in the US-because it’s a very minority group. But for anyone who also feels the same about ‘annoying’ pedestrians. Just remember, everyone is a pedestrian at some point of the day, unless you have some disability and cannot physically walk, etc. Until this “us and them” mentality changes, you better watch out for the cars, because to the drivers, YOU are also another annoying pedestrian.

http://twitter.com/snogglethorpe Miles Bader

@effron:disqus Laws are not the same as common sense. Laws are a rigid approximation that in the best case hopefully capture common sense, but often are ludicrously different. That’s why people expect the police to use some judgement when applying them.

Common sense says: if the street’s wide open and empty, you can walk / bike wherever, and it doesn’t hurt anybody.

Cars are held to a much stricter standard because they need to be — they’re (1) far more dangerous, (2) much faster (meaning dangerous situations development much more quickly, often too fast to be reacted to), (3) far less controllable, and (4) have vastly worse situational awareness.

Unfortunately traffic laws in most places are single-mindedly written for cars, with other modes a scarce afterthought.

This guy may or may not have been doing something bad, but whether or he “broke the law” or not has little to say on the matter. The police mishandled the matter. They should have just stopped the guy and say “hey, be careful, you’re with kids, and you know that technically what you’re doing is illegal.”

I do agree that when children are present, one should err on the side of caution, even if it seems a little silly.

Joe R.

@effron:disqus What the law says to do, and what makes the most sense to do, are often entirely different things. You assume people who wrote the traffic laws thought through every single circumstance for everything which might conceiveable be on the road. If that were actually done, I would bet good money that the rules for bicycles would be quite a bit different than the rules for cars. However, it wasn’t done. Not even close. The idea that bicycles must follow the exact same traffic laws as cars, to the letter, is a relic of the late 19th century which may have made some sense back then, but made less and less sense as roads were optimized solely to speed automobile traffic.

This case here is a particularly good example. OK, it’s a one way street. Consider however that often the only reason some streets are one way is to control automobile traffic flow (i.e. eliminate the need for left and/or right turns by forcing auto traffic to go in one direction only). A second, lesser reason might be because the street is just too narrow for safe, two-way auto traffic, although that reason mostly isn’t relevant given the wide streets in most cities. In either case, it’s certainly possible for something as small as a bicycle to safely squeeze in and go opposite traffic most of the time. So the real questions here should be why do one-way streets also apply to bicycles, and are there cases where we could relax this requirement?

Before proceeding any further, note that I’m a stickler when it comes to riding with traffic. That’s one of the few traffic laws I feel it usually makes sense for cyclists to obey. I may pass red lights when I can, not stop completely at stop signs, very occasionally ride on sidewalks, but I generally never ride against traffic if I can help it. That said, there are occasions (maybe once a month) I might go a block or less the wrong way down a quiet road to avoid a very circuitous route, or go on the left side of a road 100 feet before making a left turn if it allows me to avoid opposing traffic I might otherwise need to wait for if I did things by the book. I may well have elected to briefly ride against traffic in this case, even though I’m usually dead set against it. The reason was I would only be going counterflow a short distance, the road was clear, and there was an obstruction which forced me into the road one way or the other. Sure, walking the bike is another option, but that puts me in the danger zone for an even longer period of time. In the end, my safety takes precedence over traffic laws, so I do anything to minimize the instances where I might potentially be in conflict with cars.

Getting back to whether or not one-way streets make sense for cyclists, in some cases I think they don’t. This applies mostly to those streets with an extra 5 feet or so which can be devoted to a counterflow bike lane. If it’s safe for a cyclist to ride against traffic because there is sufficient room, then just make it legal by striping a counterflow bike lane on the left side of the street (and put whatever signs/signals are needed at intersections for that counterflow lane). If not, then keep the street one-way for everyone. There are actually many instances of one-way streets which might not quite be wide enough for another traffic lane, but have room for a bicycle lane. Better yet, even consider a parking-protected bidirectional bike lane on these streets if room allows. Finally, in cases where maybe the street must remain one-way for all, use common sense enforcing the law. A car backing into a parking spot on a one-way street is legal, and no more dangerous than a bicycle going the opposite way for a couple of car lengths. It’s not like this was a busy, major thoroughfare. Traffic was such that I probably could have set up a table and eaten breakfast without seeing any cars.

Lodel

Amazing. Here in Amsterdam cyclists and scooters are allowed to ride against traffic on one-way streets. Very very narrow one-way streets and it’s fine. From the looks of it on Google maps, this street is barely used and is 4 times the width of a typical Amsterdam street. Ridiculous! The road engineers or Detroit’s planners should get the fine in this case.

http://www.clubantietam.com Clubantietam

@twitter-22993622:disqus JM, No, I think the ticket was deserved for riding the wrong way on a one-way street. I don’t think he got a ticket for riding on the sidewalk, but correct me if I’m wrong. I’ve seen the video, I agree that the amount of obstacles in the bike lane are ridiculous, but that’s not the situation here.

http://www.clubantietam.com Clubantietam

@twitter-22993622:disqus JM, No, I think the ticket was deserved for riding the wrong way on a one-way street. I don’t think he got a ticket for riding on the sidewalk, but correct me if I’m wrong. I’ve seen the video, I agree that the amount of obstacles in the bike lane are ridiculous, but that’s not the situation here.

sam g

the police are paid by you fellow citizens. they are here to protect and serve. the police should have assisted the father and kids safely home since they were so close and had to detour around construction on a sidewalk. the police should have protected the the family and served his community. it wasn’t like they were going miles and miles the wrong way, they were within sight of their home. society has become backwards.

Sir Naff

He rode on the sidewalk? That’s a fine right there. Then he switched to riding the wrong way on the road? That’s another one. I’ve been hit by people switching from sidewalk to wrong way on the road, they ought to be punished MORE, not less. I doubt he would get fined for riding on the right side of the street and not using the sidewalk, but apparently he did the exact opposite.

I ride my bike to and from work every day and while I agree that it is more dangerous than it ought to be, this man actually WAS putting himself and his children in more danger. After all, cars don’t look for you on the sidewalk.

Anonymous

Riding on the sidewalk is legal in most places outside of NYC, just like right turns on red. Michigan law allows sidewalk cycling, although a handful of communities do not.

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